Lo stallone

I'd managed to avoid this film for decades but, in the end, my curiosity got the better of me and I thought I'd take a look.

My expectations were set pretty low, which was just as well as it's laughably naff, cheesy and low budget.

I won't go into the plot (such as it is), but it's really a vehicle for Joan Collins to hone her bitchy cougar persona to the hilt - while getting caught up in a predictably doomed love and lust tangle.

Oliver Tobias is suitably sullen as her love-interest, and the sex and orgy scenes (which presumably at the time were very racy and made the film so popular for cinema goers) are now very tame and even a bit silly.

There is of course the late 70s disco soundtrack which adds to the cheese - as well as providing lengthy scenes of disco dancing in a nightclub that just feel like padding in a film that was pretty thin on the ground to start with!

Some of the locations are good (villages in Berks & Bucks, and the indoor swimming pool), but as whole this film is extremely tedious, risible, and very much a bi-product of its time.

The R2 double-feature DVD of this film, along with its sequel THE BITCH (1979; see below), had been available for rental through my local DVD outlet for quite some time - and, though I had been tempted to check it out time and again, I finally took the plunge after having watched star Joan Collins in another sexy role in ...CAN HEIRONYMUS MERKIN EVER FORGET MERCY HUMPPE AND FIND TRUE HAPPINESS? (1969).

Based on the lurid novel by Joan's own sister, Jackie Collins, the film isn't for anyone looking for quality cinema; cheesy, sleazy trash - set in London and accompanied by a dated disco soundtrack - that's filled with copious but unerotic nudity. Collins, at least, is clearly having fun with her bitchy role; Oliver Tobias is the would-be stud who finds himself to be merely a pawn in her game (and who, predictably, finds real love in the arms of Collins' teenage step-daughter); while Walter Gotell (a regular in the James Bond extravaganzas) is her betrayed but vengeful diplomat husband.

I can't pretend otherwise, I've always loved this film and it's one of my guilty pleasures for a rainy afternoon, or more likely a night in with a few drinks.

It's astoundingly dreary looking: apart from Joan's soft focus entrance there is precious little opulence on display. The film is low-lit and rather seedy looking. The opening credits sequence remarkably switches from day to night and back again! But right from the start, when the incredibly beautiful Felicity departs after a night with Tony, and then the sequence of him dressing and going out to the sound of the irresistible theme tune (watch Oliver Tobias trying to say "you handsome bastard" tro himself as quietly as possible!), this is a classic quotealong movie. Some of the one liners are great: "they ask for comics and a bag of sweets you give 'em penthouse and amyl nitrate" and best of all "there are two sorts of women in this world. The first sort pick you up and screw you, the second sort pick your brains and screw you up." It's rubbish of course, but however good it may or may not be its about the disco scene and shagging so it will always be seen in that way.

Whatever happened to the director? Oliver Tobias is rather underused in the film it must be said: he doesn't have much to do and is rather overshadowed by super-bitch Fontaine. But the soundtrack is great, and the film is fun. And the scenes with Tony and his pals are the best in the movie. Those three deserved a series! But why does Ben return the video to Fontaine? Surely he'll need it as evidence?

Artistically this film probably deserves its average 2-3 out of 10 rating on IMDb, but to watch it for artistic reasons is a mistake. This is a film that simply went out to make as much money as possible and in that respect it was a big (and rare UK) success. So while the much mocked health spa/ swimming pool orgy scene is unarguably pure hokum, its purpose was simply to get film goers talking about all the raunchy scenes, as was the sex in the lift scene. Other great word of mouth devices are using the hugely popular (among men of a certain age) Pans People/ Legs & Co in the dancing scenes and cashing in on the disco craze. Simply as a fan of cinema these devices are of great interest. To top it all there is a surprisingly good film poster for a film supposedly of no artistic merit. After watching it after all these years (too young at the time) I am impressed that the rather pathetic British film industry of this time was capable of making such a venal and direct money spinner.

Like most seventies softcore the film that put Joan Collins back on the map contains far more talk than rutting; and like anything thinking it's being really with-it it now looks far more dated than anything made in the fifties; compounded by the constant pounding disco music on the soundtrack.

As it meanders along it's garrulous way you also have plenty of time to marvel at the fact such a sorry collection of fashion disasters got so much more sex than any other generation before or since.